


Stargazing

by muselives



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-11
Updated: 2009-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muselives/pseuds/muselives
Summary: Edmund sneaks away to look for his star.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie/Ramandu's Daughter | Liliandil





	Stargazing

**Author's Note:**

> [2020-01-17 author's note] Reposted from LJ, for Kitoky. Can be read as prequel to [A Book and His Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284394). Unedited.
> 
> [original 2009-02-11 author's note] 100foraslan Challenge #13 (Edmund's secret), quote by George Bernard Shaw (cut text "There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses."). _PC_ AU where the Pevensies stay and Rillian is born to Susan and Caspian; post- _VDT_. For the sake of my sanity I named Ramandu's daughter on Amaris. Edmund/Amaris UST. Unbetaed.

"Rilian!" Edmund snatched his nephew back from the gap in the tower wall. "Where do you think you're going?"

A pointless question since the child was too young for words. Babbling, he pointed to the far tower where Dr. Cornelius had set up a telescope.

"Maybe if you had wings, Ril." He turned around and caught sight of a winded nanny making her way up the stairs. Bouncing his nephew in his arms, he crossed over to the flushed woman and said, "Here's your charge."

"Oh, thank you, your majesty!" she panted, taking the squirming boy from him. "He must have seen you come up." Pretending to adjust the boy's jacket, she asked with a quick glance, "Is his lordship meeting someone then?"

Manufacturing a smile, he answered, "Just stargazing."

The woman betrayed a suspicious, doubtful look before she bowed and made her way back down the stairs, scolding Rillian the whole way.

Edmund almost missed the illumination of a candle on the far tower. He moved to the ledge his nephew had held and watched intently as the cloaked figure dropped her hood. He could tell even at this distance and in this poor light that Ramandu's daughter had her eyes fixed on her relatives above.

Why had Amaris left her father's care? Edmund leaned into the stone wall as he considered how pleasant she'd been with Lucy, how eager she was to meet Susan and Rilian, how low she'd curtsy when she saw Peter. The last hadn't sat with him all that well but he supposed it served him right for fancying a woman so far beyond his reach. If her eye turned to his brother, he should hardly be surprised.

Every night she observed this ritual with perfect stillness. He had caught her at it purely by accident in a search for Dr. Cornelius. He could attribute it to curiosity that he had witnessed these visitations but he had no excuse for standing with her almost three hours until she went back inside.

No doubt Rilian's nanny would add to the whispers. Everyone was trying to guess why he was up at these late hours. King Edmund was quite not the same since the voyage of the _Dawn Treader_.

As his mind wandered with these thoughts, he did not see her move. It was not until she was turned to face him that Edmund leapt back with the intention of hiding. In the faint orange glow of her candle, he could make out the contented turn of her lips and the watchfulness of her pale blue eyes.

She dropped into a curtsy. Edmund felt himself return it in a stiff bow. She turned towards the door to leave; he was already half-way down the stairs.

One of the maids noted to her companions in a soft buzz that King Edmund looked very flushed as he passed. A new round of gossip started as they wondered what exactly the youngest king had seen up there under the stars.


End file.
